Sabyasachi Bagchi: We all know that Indian women cricket team’s speedster Jhulan Goswami biopic will happen. Jhulan herself, her teammates and family have also helped the director with their valuable memories regarding the most successful woman pacer in the history of Indian cricket. Now the question is from when the shoot of the much awaited film “Chakdah Express” would start?
While talking to www.xtratime.in Director Susanta Das said,” The script regarding Jhulan’s biopic has almost ended. We have started our talks with a few renowned production houses of Mumbai and they have showed good interest about the movie. I have already talked with Mithali Raj, Smriti Mandhana, Veda Krishnamurthy, Harmanpreet Kaur and Indian women’s cricket team coach Tushar Arothe regarding Jhulan’s cricketing career. There is a meeting regarding this matter in Mumbai on March 8. After March 10 I can say more about this matter but we are hopeful that the shooting will start from July or August.”
To play Jhulan’s character from her early days to her peak, the director needs a good actress as well. It was in news that Deepika Padukone will play the character of Jhulan in the movie but according to Susanta, its nothing but a rumour.” Deepika was on our mind at first, but we haven’t reached her yet. If we get a chance to talk with her, we will definitely try to cast her. But we also have two very good actress on our mind and we will take a final decision after talking to them.”
In the biopic of MS Dhoni, Sushant Singh Rajput portrayed Dhoni’s manarism efficiently and the actor got help from former cricketer Kiran More who helped Sushant to adopt the way Dhoni keep the wicket and his batting styles. In this film there will be a former women cricketer who played with Jhulan who will help the actress as a coach to adopt the style of Jhulan. The speedster is now at NCA talked to www.xtratime.in and said, “Obviously there will be a coach but, if I will get time I will also help the actress. ”
But, director Susanta Das feels that its really very challenging for him as he said, “You can adopt the manarism by training hard but the way Jhulan made herself as a star is very different. The actress has to adopt the aggration that Jhulan has and it needs some research. So it will not be very easy as an actress or a director. It’s going to tough time ahead.”
Jhulan could not give time to the director, however Susanta got help of Jhulan’s sister Jhumpa to watch the ground where Jhulan used to practice, her house where she use to live in her childhood. He also talked with the neighbors of Jhulan. Indian women cricket star also eagerly waiting for the movie as she said, “I got offers for my biopic a lot before last World Cup, but I never thought seriously. I found similarity of thoughts when I talked with Susanta and I agreed.” Later she added,” If this biopic can inspire another woman to get success then the movie will be successful.”
Susanta is a big fan of Jhulan as he said, “I got inspired by her life and her fighting spirit. That is the reason why I wanted to do the film. Despite being a girl from a village which is very close to the border of Bangladesh it was never easy to excel her talent into the world stage. As a Bengali girl she only knew Bengali but later adopted Hindi and English and also conquered many milestones in cricket. I want to show it like the way she did it and I think the world needs to know. That is why I started doing this project”